Wolf Management: Non-lethal Control
4. Guarding Animals
Guarding animals are one of the distinguishing tools of the traditional shepherd. By far the most common guarding animal is the dog. The birthplace of guarding dogs can be traced back about 2,500 years to nomadic shepherds in the Middle East who used certain breeds of dog to guard sheep from foxes, lynx, wolverines, wolves and bears.
Breeds
Worldwide today there are over forty breeds of guarding dogs. Some popular breeds are Great Pyrenees (in France and Spain), Maremma (in Italy), Komondor (in Hungary), Akbash dog and Anatolian shepherd (in Turkey). But breeding does not seem to be absolutely essential. The Navajo of North America use mongrels successfully as guarding dogs today, demonstrating that breeding is not necessary; raising dogs properly may be more important.
Most guarding dogs are large, around 35 to over 45 kilograms (75 to over 100 pounds), and about 60 centimetres (25 inches) or more at the shoulder. Some are brown or gray, but by tradition most breeds are light-coloured. It is said that light colours are more easily picked out by shepherds from the darker coloured predators. But it is also said that sheep feel easier with light coloured dogs, who look more like sheep, so shepherds tend to prefer them and breed more of them.
Decline & Rise Of Guarding Dogs
The use of guarding dogs decreased as traditional shepherding declined. Some breeds are now relegated to pet and show dog status while others are rare or extinct.
However, conservation organisations began promoting guarding dogs as a means of non-lethal control where killing predators is illegal or arouses strong public criticism. A project in Bulgaria, in the Kraishte and Eastern Rhodopes mountains, started giving the Karakachan, a rare breed of guarding dog, to shepherds. In one go the project is helping to protect sheep, conserve wolves and support the breed.
Livestock guarding dogs are making headway even in the US. They were introduced in the 1970's mainly to guard livestock from coyotes, but also from wolves, bears and other predators, and have spread to Canada. Guarding dogs are also making inroads to other countries where they are not traditional, such as Norway, confronting wolves, bears and wolverines, and Namibia, facing cheetahs.
How Guarding Dogs Work
The best use of guarding dogs is working in alliance with shepherds. A dog barks an alarm when he spots a predator and one or more shepherds come and deal with the situation.
But guarding dogs often work independently when a shepherd leaves a flock unattended. If there are no shepherds about and a guarding dog detects a predator, the dog stands his ground, barks and may force a predator to retreat. If the predator persists, the dog may threaten and charge. As a last resort dog and predator may end up fighting.
Shepherds use both methods in the Carpathian Mountains in eastern Europe where five million sheep share their range with over three thousand wolves.
Do not confuse guarding dogs with herding dogs. Guarding dogs do not generally herd their charges and are often left alone with them. Herding dogs work with a handler, obeying his commands to muster livestock, and are not usually left alone with them.
Guarding Donkeys
Guarding dogs have a long history and are still the mainstay of guarding animals. However, their profession has recently been opened to other guarding animals, notably donkeys and llamas.
Donkeys (Equus asinus), sometimes called burros in America, were first domesticated at least 4,500 years ago, from the Onager (African/Asiatic wild ass) (Equus hemionus), in the Nile Valley. Donkeys have been used as draught, pack and riding animals, for milk and meat, and their dung used as fuel and fertiliser. But it is their strong aversion to canids and their inclination to stay in herds which makes them suitable guarding animals. A guarding donkey's new herd nowadays just happens to be a flock of sheep. See The Story Of Rosie.
By the end of the 1980's over a thousand livestock produces in Texas were using guarding donkeys to protect sheep and goats from coyotes and dogs. And guarding donkeys are increasingly popular in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, California and Oregon. They are beginning to catch on in Europe, too, as a number of farmers in Switzerland employ donkeys to guard their sheep, now that wolves are recolonising the country.
Guarding Llamas
Llamas (Lama glama) are camelids, members of the camel family, and come from South America. They are used mainly as beasts of burden carrying produce in the steep and rugged Andes Mountains. They are domesticated from the guanaco, a wild camelid living primarily in Patagonia. The guanaco, and the smaller vicuna - who live in the high altiplano grasslands of the central Andes - were originally native to the North American grasslands and deserts but died out there 15,000 to 10,000 to years ago. Another domesticated South American camel is the alpaca, who produces fine wool for knitting into clothes and blankets. Llamas, guanacos, alpacas and hybrids of all three, are employed as guarding animals for sheep and are referred to generically as llamas.
Llamas, like donkeys, are naturally aggressive to canids and like to stay in herds. Fewer sheep were noticed to be taken by coyotes when llamas were pastured with sheep and since the 1980's the use of llamas has spread mainly in the 'guarding donkey' states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, California and Oregon. Although llama farms exist in Europe, guarding llamas have not yet caught on there.
How Donkeys & Llamas Work
Unlike a guarding dog-shepherd team, donkeys and llamas usually work solo without human backup. On spotting a predator, a donkey or llama starts braying or snorting loudly, stomps about and then, if need be, rushes in. If the predator has not sped off, they may attack, rearing up on hind legs and striking down with fore-hooves, or while on the move lashing out with one or both hind-hooves. A solid blow to the skull can kill a predator or a kick in the ribs can seriously disable one.
Predators as big as wolves can kill guarding animals and sometimes do, so it is not clear why livestock guarding animals deter predators. Perhaps wolves opt to save energy and by avoiding confrontations also avoid the possibility of injury - unless they are highly motivated by hunger to attack.
Raising Guarding Animals
Guarding animals do not need to be trained for guarding. Their guarding behaviour is natural and there from birth. However, guarding animals do need to adjust or bond to the animals they will protect.
Pups form social attachments most strongly between three and twelve weeks of age. So a future guarding dog is introduced to lambs in a pen when a puppy of seven or eight weeks old. As the pup grows, instead of bonding with his mother, as dogs normally do, or with a human owner, he bonds with the sheep. After a couple of months he is ready to go out to pasture with the sheep he will guard.
Donkeys and llamas bond more quickly than dogs. They can be placed as adults with the sheep they are going to guard and just need to stay with them from a few hours for bonding to be effective or sometimes up to six weeks. It is said a dog grows up feeling himself to be a sheep, not a dog. Donkeys and llamas seem to see their sheep's pasture as their territory and their sheep as their family group.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Guarding dogs are most successful where traditional shepherding is practised. They are less successful or ineffective in modern flocks where there are too many sheep or where the sheep are too widely scattered for them to guard effectively. For small flocks they are a labour saver as a shepherd does not need to be present 24 hours a day.
Donkeys and llamas have several advantageous qualities over dogs. Donkeys and llamas do not need the long period of being raised with sheep nor need to be raised with sheep from a very young age. They eat the same food as sheep, relieving livestock producers of having to find them every day to take them food, as they must with dogs. Guarding dogs may fall victim to baited traps and poisoned carcasses deployed to kill predators; this is not a problem for donkeys and llamas because they are not attracted to meat, being herbivores. It is said that donkeys and llamas are less prone to accidental death than dogs and generally live longer.
Some disadvantages of guarding animals are occasions when they may harass, injure or kill livestock, do not stay with their flocks, are aggressive to passing people, and in the case of llamas sometimes attempt to mate with sheep. Llamas can be relatively expensive to purchase and many vets still have little experience of the camel family. Worse, guarding animals are themselves vulnerable to attack by predators and ones working solo without the support of a shepherd could be overwhelmed and be injured or die by a pack attack. A wolf pack might perceive a domestic dog as a strange wolf intruding on their territory and get trashed; a pack could attack a donkey or llama as prey. Guarding animals require an investment with no guarantee of a positive results.
The Future
The usual wards of guarding animals are sheep. But in some places guarding animals are applied to protect cattle, deer, ducks, geese and goats. The number of guarding animals to protect these livestock might increase where appropriate owing to the reintroduction of wolves in the US and the recent ongoing wolf recolonisation of Europe. Livestock producers who no longer know how to use them, however, will have to learn, as the ancients did, how best to employ them.
© Wolf Trust 2004. All rights reserved.